Developers Can Disable The DualShock 4's Share Button

Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has revealed some more information about the DualShock 4's 'Share' button.

In an interview with Japanese game news site 4Gamer (translated by Edge), Yoshida reveals that developers can disable the use of the 'Share' button at key times, meaning users won't be able to upload whatever footage they want.

“There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see,” he said. “For example, on Vita, developers can in certain scenes disable the feature that lets users take a screenshot, and (the Share function) will have a similar mechanism. The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance.”

Exit Theatre Mode

The interview also reveals the genesis behind one of the DualShock's biggest innovations.

“We were trying to think of a way to make it easier for users to upload video," said Yoshida. "And one day a member of our in-house production team just said, ‘How about a Share button?’ We called out in unison, ‘That’s it!’”

Yoshida got behind the idea not a purely as a shrewd business decision but from his own addiction to Dark Souls – he would regularly look up videos of the game on Japanese video-streaming site Niconico Douga. “I wanted to play Dark Souls all day long, but I couldn’t do that because I was too busy. So instead I would watch people playing it live on Niconico whenever I had some spare time. By doing that, you can find other ways to play the game and read comments by other users. I felt that sharing videos is a really important part of enjoying games.”

The PlayStation 4 will be released later this year.

Daniel is IGN's UK Staff Writer. You can be part of the world's most embarrassing cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.